


Trial of Blood

by BensLostTookaCat (VillainTheBlank)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: All tags that follow this one are possible spoilers, But not exactly, Canon-Typical Sexual Content, Canon-Typical Violence, Chapters are individually tagged, Crossover, Early 14th century, Elder Blood is kinda sorta an analog for the Force, F/F, F/M, I am not watching the Henry Cavill Witcher series, Lots of characters appear in backstory and exposition, M/M, More tags to follow, Multi, OCs all over the place - Freeform, Other, Post-Canon, So any similarities between this and that are purely coincidental, Takes place post-Witcher 3, There are more Witcher Schools than were covered in the games, Uses some characters from the Witcher books
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 05:35:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21265895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VillainTheBlank/pseuds/BensLostTookaCat
Summary: The year is 1310. The world is changing, and the atmosphere continues to worsen for non-humans--elves, dwarves, witchers, sorceresses, and even human practitioners of sacred ways--alchemists and wise folk, hedge mages--all of them are in constant danger of harassment, imprisonment, ruination, and death.To make matters worse, harvests are less bountiful, and though war no longer ravages the continent as it once did, little has been done to restore the pre-war peace or prosperity that every elder swears was the way of things. This, too, has been blamed on magic and the non-human races.Along with sorceresses, elves, and dwarves, witchers have been driven to the margins for nearly a century by a populace who fears rather than understands their ways, and who resents needing them, seeing them as the problem rather than the solution. Now, the Witchers are all but extinct, their schools driven underground, destroyed, or abandoned. Kylo Ren is one of the last of the Witchers, trained at Kaer Morhen in the School of the Wolf.When we meet Kylo, he is in the Duchy of Toussaint, and in some very hot water...





	Trial of Blood

**Author's Note:**

> The crossover nobody asked for! I'm not sorry, not in the slightest.
> 
> Chapter CW: attempted murder, apparitions/ghosts, canon-typical violence, blood.

The clop-clip of Silencer’s hooves, the rhythmic back-and-forth of the saddle, the scent of dusty roads; these were as close as Kylo Ren ever came to true meditation — and centring, calming focus was sorely needed, now that he was, if not on the run, certainly _persona non grata_ in the Duchy of Toussaint.

Of course, this put him in good company, considering he was escorting Princess Anna Mathilde of Brugge, lately the Duchess of Toussaint, back to her family’s castle.

While Duke Henri Phillipe commanded the loyalty of the Toussantois by simple virtue of his being the son of the wildly-beloved late Duchess Anna Henrietta, the people had largely adopted the Princess as one of their own, thanks in no small part to her mother-in-law’s public hand in selecting her son’s wife and championing her with the common people of Beauclair. The Princess was not without charms of her own to sway the people to her side, however; Anna Mathilde was beautiful, her light hair and grey eyes piercing the heart of many an onlooker at first glance. She was also uncommonly perceptive and kind for a princess, moving with ease from wine-soaked soirees to a field hospital or orphanage, and making both the lowliest urchin and the most highborn lord feel _seen._ Kylo himself had been unnerved by her eerie way of piercing a person’s outer defences and seeing what lay beneath the surface, as well as her gentle, though decidedly odd, way of explaining what it was that she saw there. (There had, of course, been rumours at court and beyond that the gentle, good-hearted princess was feeble-minded, or mad, but most people did not dare utter such unkind words where they might be overheard.)

For their present journey, however, those haunting grey orbs were hidden beneath a black mourning veil, their owner ensconced in a simple but comfortable carriage. Princess Anna Mathilde had left her husband and his home with only the Bruggeling honour guard and ladies-in-waiting who had accompanied her to the Duchy a mere two years ago, and what little of her dowry and trousseau they could pack in haste.

As it turned out, the Princess need not have worried; the Duke, either overcome with shame or wroth with pride, had made no move to give chase and bring his estranged wife home — a fact that would be as good as a confession in the court of public opinion. It would, Kylo mused to himself, take a man with stones the size of cantaloupes to ride out after a wife that his secret lover had been poisoning for months.

The clusters of houses on the outskirts of the capital gradually gave way to the bright green hues and orderly lines of Beauclair’s wine country, which in turn yielded to the gentle slopes, proud mountains, and thick forests of Toussaint’s countryside. Now and again, the entourage passed merchants whose carts graciously ceded the right of way, no few of whom covered their hearts with their caps as the Princess’ carriage passed them. Other times, they would pass clusters of peasants, viniers and hay wains, milkmaids and laundresses. It was these that interested Kylo more, and his preternatural hearing allowed him to eavesdrop without betraying his presence, let alone his interest.

“I can’t believe she would up and leave us, after everything that Her Illustrious Grace, may she rest in peace, done for her!” muttered one laundress to her companion, who reared back in shock, dropping the chemise she was cleaning back into the murky washbucket.

“Caro, didn’t you hear?! An attempt was made on the poor thing’s life!” She leaned closer to her counterpart, and whispered conspiratorially. “Got his looks from his dear departed mother, but in temper and tastes he takes after his _father,_ His Illustrious Grace does!”

It was Caro’s turn to be shocked, and she sputtered until she was past Kylo’s hearing. Bad news, or at least juicy gossip, truly did have wings, it would seem.

* * *

_“So,” Kylo loomed over the straight-backed, cloaked figure who had taken up residence in the back of the Leaping Stag, “what kind of contract requires meeting late at night in a tavern in the middle of nowhere?”_

_“If you would please be seated, Master Witcher,” a delicately accented, feminine voice murmured in reply, “I will gladly tell you.”_

_Kylo hadn’t been expecting a woman, and he involuntarily sat up taller as he settled onto the seat across from the lady in the shadows. He beckoned over the tavern girl, a slip of a thing who had likely barely seen her twelfth winter._

_“I’ll have a house ale, whatever that might be, and my companion here will have…”_

_He trailed off and peered at the dark hood, waiting for a reply, but an elegant black glove picked up the glass goblet from the table and wiggled it. The serving wench nodded._

_“Five coppers, sir.” Satisfied once the coins hit her tray, she nimbly wove her way to the counter._

_Kylo turned back to his would-be employer, who was giving him a rather blatant once-over. He lifted a quizzical eyebrow._

_“See something you like?”_

_“Possibly.” She accepted a refill of her wine from the girl, then returned her attention to Kylo. “Being a Witcher, I presume you are good at both finding spirits and… convincing them to return to their rest?”_

_Kylo’s second eyebrow joined the first in its continued climb up his forehead._

_“That depends what you mean by ‘convincing’…” he gave a half-shrug, then took a swig of his ale. “Can’t say most people have asked me to _convince_ a ghost so much as _destroy_ it.”_

_The lady made a delicate exclamation at this, and the head beneath the hood shook._

_“Well, this is an unusual and… rather sensitive… situation, requiring more tact and reverence than muscle. Tell me: are you familiar with Her Enlightened Ladyship, the late Duchess Anna Henrietta of Toussaint?”_

_Kylo managed to swallow his drink and his cough of surprise._

* * *

Shaking off the reverie, Kylo saw that the orderly landscapes had already given way to the wild borderlands between Toussaint and Temeria. The absence of human activity was underscored by a hum of wildlife and insects so oppressive that it made Kylo’s teeth buzz, a blank mind all but guaranteed by the droning reverberations. This was not how he’d thought this contract would turn out. No, he mused, this had been a total disaster. Well, perhaps not _total_— he had been paid, after all. However, he hadn’t had a contract end this badly since he’d been a fresh-faced novice; now, there was little besides succession likely to reopen the borders to him. Perhaps he would stay in Temeria for a while; as a vassal state to Nilfgaard, their military protection was assured, but the average serf or peasant had altogether different concerns. The dawn of the fourteenth century hadn’t brought any kind of Disjunction of the Spheres, and while the people may have forgotten how it came to be that monsters and wraiths were so much fewer and further between, the Witchers could not.

The distant crack of wood against steel and grunts of exertion had Kylo pulling up on his reins and raising a gloved hand as he raised up in the saddle.

“Master Witcher, what is it? What do you hear?”

The captain of the Bruggeling honour guard halted the entourage at the sight of Kylo, perfectly still, listening as attentively as a hound might.

“A fight, up the road.” He lowered his hood and pulled out his hand crossbow, loading it swiftly. “Three—” a thud, inaudible to human ears at this distance, and continued blows— _“two_ against one.”

He spurred his horse, one hand on the reins.

“Silencer, go!”

The midnight stallion and black-clad rider raced around the bend. A youth, dressed in a boldly-coloured style that the witcher had never seen, held his ground against a pair of opponents, both of whom looked the worse for wear. Another, clad in the same maroon and gold as his counterparts, lay bloodied and unconscious near a great oak.

Kylo pulled up on the reins again and made to dismount when one of the maroon brigands caught sight of him.

“Kill the mutant!” the man cried, stupidly forgetting all about the youth he had been fighting moments before. Availing himself of such a foolish misjudgement, the boy brained the larger man with his staff, who dropped like a sack of potatoes. However, the youth had left himself open to attack, and it looked as though he would pay dearly when his final attacker wrapped a garrote around his pale, delicate throat.

The boy choked in surprise as much as anything, but, with nerves of steel and reflexes to suit, he hefted his staff forward slightly, and Kylo heard a strange clicking before the butt end of the staff rammed into his foe’s ribs with a far wetter crunch than Kylo would have expected. The man cried out and fell to the ground, blood wetting his shirt and staining the grass below.

This was a weapon and a technique that the witcher was utterly unfamiliar with, and it had been an impressive feat for a boy without so much as a hint of beard on his face. Panting and exhausted, the youth leaned against a nearby tree with one hand on his bladed staff and one gingerly assessing the welt on his throat as he eyed Kylo warily. When the witcher took another step forward, however, the boy brandished the staff, bladed end pointing away — _how was that going to do him any good?,_ Kylo wondered — and dropped into a fighting stance.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Kylo drawled, his hands open and palms out. A humming against his collarbone game him pause, and he halted his advance, his gaze turning much more inquisitive. Why was this boy making his medallion go crazy? Then, Kylo saw something that made him forget all about it — the boy wore a similar silver medallion around his neck. Territorial anger welled up inside him.

“Those medallions are _earned,”_ he said in a dark, disapproving tone.

“I did earn this one,” came the testy, oddly-accented reply — in a high, light register, if a bit raspy from choking. This… was no mere boy. Despite the situation, Kylo’s respect for the stranger went up a few notches. Edging slowly nearer, he could see that her medallion had the shape of a winged lion, but the face and breasts of a woman. However, as his eyes lingered on her, he could see that her own eyes were a hazel colour, bearing no cat’s-eye mutation. He snarled.

_“Women_ don’t survive the Trial of the Grasses — _you’ve_ never been through it. You’re _not_ a witcher. You didn’t _earn_ that.”

“Hmph!” Her chin tilted proudly, her chest broadening in defiance. “I killed an entire nest of sand manglers, saved a caravanserai. Merchant offered this and a sack of gold as payment. I most certainly did earn it, you arrogant prick!”

She turned her back on him, her dismissal clear. Before he could chide her on making the same stupid mistake twice, however, she stunned him into silence with what must have been a twenty-foot leap onto one of the oak’s higher boughs. A scattering of leaves announced her departure, her feather-light footfalls vanishing in mere seconds.

What the hell had just happened?

Lost in thought, he looted the bandits’ bodies automatically, then mounted Silencer and returned to Princess Anna Mathilde’s carriage and escort.

“Well, Master Witcher?” The captain of the guard again. “What news?”

Kylo gave a half-shrug.

“Highwaymen. Easily defeated.”

“And their victim?”

A shake of the head.

“A youth foolish enough to be in the woods alone. I sent him home.”

The lie was something less than smooth, but what choice did he have? While there had been nothing truly objectionable about his choices in the field, the gentle Princess would have seen his actions as ungallant, especially had she known the would-be victim was female. Her Highness held the Toussaintois’ Knightly Virtues in reverence, having believed in a similar code of chivalry even before marrying into the Duchy — even when she was at death’s door.

* * *

_“Anamatha,” he began, ignoring the baleful glare of her matron-in-waiting, who almost certainly disapproved of someone like him, who was not the Duke nor a family member nor a childhood friend, referring to the Duchess of Toussaint by such an intimate name. The supine young woman regarded him with a languid look._

_“I’ve brought this medicine for you. You must drink it, now, before it’s too late.”_

_Her grip, weak though it was, stopped Kylo cold._

_“Hear me, Master Witcher,” wheezed the pale blonde, her grey eyes nearly white as the poison worked to unmoor her soul from her body. She winced in what must have been mortal agony, but soldiered on. _

_“Actions… speak louder than words, but… rarely do they tell the whole story. Promise me… promise me that when you find…”_

_The duchess’ face turned away, and her voice became an anguished whisper._

_“When you speak to him, listen to the whole story.”_

_Kylo was ready to scream — even dying, she was urging him to have compassion for the sort of malicious coward who could poison a candidate for sainthood, a woman whose most dangerous feature was her boundless compassion. Even dying, she was begging him to listen without judgement to the man who was slowly killing her — though it must be said that at this point, she believed him only to be the man who had written terrible slanders about the late Duchess Anna Henrietta._

_Unable to see how to even begin a counterargument, Kylo nodded, if only to shut her up so he could administer the antidote to the Wraith Blight. Light Essence was rare, and so much as a single spilt drop could mean that it was all for nothing, and the death of the Princess of Brugge would be on his conscience._

_“While you rest, I’ll go to him, and I’ll listen, but I’m not making promises past that.”_

_Her smile was beatific, and she closed her eyes, her ashen face smoothing into a gentle repose._

_Kylo stood up from his kneeling position beside her bed. It was time for a blunt conversation with one man, or perhaps two men, who were capable of such base, dishonourable behaviour toward such a gentle creature._

_At that thought, a waft of roses tickled his senses — and had he seen a flash of auburn hair in the corner of his eye?_

_Perhaps there was more to the princess’ hallucinations than he’d realised._

* * *

Kylo looked around at the lengthening shadows of the forest.

“We’d best get a move on,” he said through pursed lips. “The hour is late, and we’re still in lawless territory.”

The captain nodded, and waved the entourage forward. The company disappeared into the early evening’s cricket song.


End file.
